Aaron Rodgers has accomplished a lot on the field over his nearly two decades in the National Football League, but this week will likely stick in people’s memories as much as any touchdown he’s thrown.

Nothing that Green Bay Packers quarterback did or said this week should really shock anyone. Rodgers has spoken a form of the FoxNews dialect for a while now, and we all should have taken notice when he said he was “immunized” at a press conference earlier this year.

Jimmy Kimmel sure didn’t pull any punches in a monologue this week:

It’s tough not to agree with pretty much all of what Kimmel says here. At this point for me, Rodgers has become just another famous anti-vaxxer — and there are soooo many of them now. His case, though, really is the entire mis- and disinformation campaign of the last decade distilled into like an hour of public comments.

Read through these little bites from Rodgers’ appearance on the Pat McAfee show — it’s all there.

The failure of so many people with such outsized voices in society over the pandemic generally, and the vaccine specifically, has been eye-opening. It’s such a bore, such a letdown, and it has real consequences. This is the latest data from the CDC — we are far from out of the woods with Covid19.

So many of the deaths were preventable — and people like Aaron Rodgers have a role to play. It’s fine to dismiss him as just some football player, but he’s very popular, very good, and very well paid. This is what really hurts.

Rodgers, his personal physician Joe Rogan, and countless other high-profile anti-vaxxers have access to absolutely elite healthcare — Rodgers perhaps more than his peers, given that he happens to be a professional athlete. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of all Gofundme campaigns are healthcare-related, there is an awful healthcare crisis in America, and people with access to the best of the best would rather call a podcast host who used to give people a few hundred bucks for wearing scorpion-filled hockey helmets.

Surely the cycle will play itself out as it always does. Now, Rodgers will be a hero of the right (gosh, how quickly the “stick to sports” crowd has embraced a guy who parrots their talking points), he’ll go on a few shows, talk about how canceled he is, play the victim (he’s not a victim of anything), and then…I don’t know.

Maybe the NFL really steps up here and makes Rodgers — and every other person employed by the league — get vaccinated and be done with it. If they don’t get their shots, they aren’t employed the league.

For now, Rodgers is in the NFL’s Covid19 protocol and will be eligible to play again soon. Whatever happens, one of the game’s greatest players became just another know-nothing this week. Aaron Rodgers is in a position to set a great example — instead, he’s become just another future Tucker Carlson guest.
BTW, Rogers has traded on his on-field success, good looks and charm to have an outsize influence in America. From State Farm commercials, to a cameo on Game of Thrones to guest-hosting Jeopardy. Speaking of my favorite game show, the producers made an absolute mess of finding a successor to the late Alex Trebek and have given its huge big platform to anti-vaxxing, Weinstein-victim-blaming, fake-pills pushing Mayim Bialik. We need to keep reminding decision-makers in this country that just because someone is successful at one thing doesn’t make them an expert on everything else.

Read Something

The arts both inform the real world and are shaped by it, and I love to see good commentary that brings them together.

It’s why we invest.
At this year's Armory Square Ventures (ASV) Annual Meeting Reception in September, the ASV community gathered in person after over a year.
To mark the occasion, we invited Buffalo Bills General Manager Brandon Beane to discuss how he has cultivated and recruited an exemplary, beloved professional football team and staff rooted in the Upstate New York region.
We love the ones who play hard through it all, magnificently, year after year, at the north end of New York State in spite of the weather (Go Bills!)
ASV Managing Partner Somak Chattopadhyay interviewed Brandon.

Watch the interview here.

Tech tip: SmartDesk Connect Helps Workers Get the Big Picture – Times Three

By Robert S. Anthony
Each week, veteran tech journalist Bob Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him @newyorkbob.

As the debate over remote, hybrid and in-person work rages on, some tech companies are stepping up with products designed for the new look of post-pandemic workplaces. While stand-up desks are nothing new, the new, triple-screened SmartDesk Connect by Cemtrex takes things to a different level.

With three 24-inch 4K monitors, motorized height adjustment and easy Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C connectivity, the $2,299 SmartDesk Connect aims at users that need quick access to multiple streams of information. Cemtrex, based in Brooklyn’s resurgent Greenpoint area, recently showed off the SmartDesk Connect at a New York tech media product showcase organized by Pepcom.

The long desktop has a 10-watt fast-charging Qi wireless charging pad embedded on the right side, two speakers mounted between the screens and a shelf under the desktop for a laptop or compact computer. A push of a button smoothly adjusts desktop height from a chair-friendly 23.7 inches to 49.3 inches for stand-up use.

Two SmartDesk versions are available to serve computers with different types of connectivity. The Connect E links via a Thunderbolt 3 port and comes with a built-in AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT graphics chip with 4GB RAM. The USB-C-based Connect D uses the power of the computer’s graphics chip and comes with two DisplayLink DL-6910 display virtualization chips to enable the use of the three monitors.

Gamers should note that the SmartDesk Connect, with its three 3840-by-2160-pixel 60Hz, non-touch monitors, is aimed at serious work. Those needing mega-speed graphics and superfast screens should look elsewhere.

The best aspect of the SmartDesk Connect might be its clean profile, which lacks wire clutter and takes up relatively little floor space. Since computers can be swapped in and out quickly, it serves well in shared workspaces and offices where desks aren’t assigned, noted a SmartDesk representative.

While the US location of SmartDesk might be good news for US customers worried about current supply chain and shipping issues, potential international customers will have to wait. SmartDesk comes with free curbside delivery or extra-cost inside delivery and setup, but it’s only available in the 48 contiguous US states for now.

Odds & Ends

🗞  TUNE IN: Our #NYTReadalong this week was w/ Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Ozier Muhammad (recording). Recent episode: NYT Book Review Deputy Editor Tina Jordan. The NYTReadalong is sponsored by Muck Rack. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group.

The Readalong is followed, on most Sundays at 11 am-noon ET, by a medical show I’m co-executive producing with surgeons Sujana Chandrasekhar, M.D. (@DrSujanaENT), and Marina Kurian, M.D. (@MarinaKurian), called She’s On Call (watch live or later). Here’s the Apple Podcasts version.

👀 Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let us know! Let’s collaborate! sree@sree.net